TeachingEnglish | Lesson plans
1h 2f 3a 4g 5d 6c 7j 8i 9e 10b
5. Small talk: practice
Students work in pairs to ask each other questions about their work or studies.
If students know each other fairly well, they can ask fairly specific questions
(e.g. their own versions of questions 2, 3, 4, 5, 7 and 9). If they don’t know each
other well, they can ask more general questions (e.g. questions 1, 6 and 8).
If you prefer, you could allow students to invent information about a fictitious
job, in which case all eight questions would work.
Students should support each other to plan the best answer for the questions,
i.e. they should spend some time deciding which tenses and vocabulary to use
in their answers.
Afterwards, students swap partners and repeat the activity. This time, their
answers should be much more fluent and natural, as they had time earlier to
plan them.
6. Getting the meeting started (1): useful phrases
Students discuss the phrases in pairs and then share their ideas with the class.
Note that some of the phrases are not especially difficult to understand, but it is
still worth drawing attention to them as they are useful to use. Afterwards, you
can check students have understood by reading one of the definitions below to
elicit the correct phrase. Students could also test each other in this way in pairs.
Suggested answers
• make a start without them = start the meeting even though they aren’t here
• a lot to get through = many things to deal with
• see where we are = assess our position / progress
• work out what we still need to do = calculate / plan our next actions
• tie up any remaining loose ends = resolve any remaining small problems
• sent round = distributed to everybody
• stick to the agenda = follow the agenda, avoid unscheduled discussions
• set aside = allocated
• run over = take longer than planned
• cover everything = discuss all the points
• get the ball rolling = start the meeting properly
• going through the list of action points = discussing the action points one by one
• look into = investigate
• came up = were mentioned
• found out = learned, discovered
7. Getting the meeting started (2): nine steps
Students work in pairs to match the steps to the descriptions. When you check
with the class, elicit some other useful phrases for each step.
Answers
1c 2e 3h 4a 5i 6g 7f 8b 9d
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© BBC | British Council 2011
TeachingEnglish | Lesson plans
8. Getting the meeting started (3): discussion
Students discuss the questions in small groups and then feed back to the class.
Suggested answers
1. She probably stood up or used another very visible signal to draw attention to
herself. When she was interrupting the small talk, perhaps she held up a hand,
palm outwards, like a policeman stopping traffic. She used eye contact to catch
people’s attention. She didn’t finish her request (Could you …?) because the
other people should be able to work out what to do without being told explicitly
(Could you please stop talking?).
2. Perhaps she was planning to speak to people individually later, rather than
express criticism in public. Some of the attendees who were not late may find
this irritating (Why should I be on time when other people are allowed to be
late?), so perhaps she could have added that ‘I’ll have speak to them
individually after the meeting’.
3. For example, if today is the 12th January, the next month is the period between
now and the 12th February. Next month simply refer to some time in February.
4. With a short agenda, it may be best to go through it, but she did send it round
and checked that everyone had seen it, so perhaps it was not necessary to go
through it now.
5. Because meetings have a tendency to fill the available time. The ideal time limit
was a way of keeping the meeting brief without being too inflexible.
6. Was/were going to. This verb form is sometimes called the future in the past. It
is used for talking about past plans.
7. Possibly, especially if there were non-native English speakers there. For
example, she could have said allocated instead of set aside, and start instead of
get the ball rolling.
9. Getting the meeting started (4): matching
Students work alone to match the beginnings and endings, and then check in
pairs before feeding back to the class. Students could also test each other in
pairs by reading a beginning to elicit the ending from their partner.
Answers
1h 2e 3n 4m 5g 6k 7a 8f 9c 10b 11j 12d 13l 14i
10. Getting the meeting started (5): practice
Students work alone to decide what their meeting will be about and to plan how
they will introduce their meetings. They then work in groups of 3–4 to take turns
to get their meetings started. Monitor carefully, and give and elicit feedback at
the end on the effectiveness of the meeting introductions.
www.teachingenglish.org.uk
© BBC | British Council 2011
